hm. whenever there is money spent by the government, someone will find a way to divert it into his own pocket. Tesla's decision to sell its vehicles not via dealers comes into new light...

Timo |
June 3, 2011

My thoughts exactly. Volts also sell quite poorly. Much less than I expected. Maybe it is the looks of the car (it is ugly) but that doesn't explain why Leaf then does sell (it is even uglier).

DHrivnak |
June 3, 2011

Curious about your comments on the Volt. In NE TN we are not yet offically allowed to have Volts but a local dealer traded for two of them and sold them both for full stick within hours of getting them.

I had a chance to drive one and while it is no Tesla I thought it performed quite well as an economy car. It was MUCH better appointed, comfortable and quieter than our Prius.

At this stage in the game I am encouraging ANY electric. We need them all to get the infrastructure in.

David70 |
June 3, 2011

In Spokane, WA:

I talked to a Chevy dealer a few weeks ago, and Washington wasn't on the original list for Volts.

He said they wouldn't be getting any in until September.

The Nissan dealer also said they wouldn't have any, and that all sales were online.

Of course, I want a Model S.

I just have to convince my wife.

Tom A |
June 4, 2011

It doesn't matter where the money comes from, gov't or otherwise. There's always an asshole somewhere waiting for an opportunity to screw over as many people as possible for his/her personal gain.

I've read conflicting reports on the Volt sales issue. The "poor sales" in the US seem to be a combination of:

a) no vehicles to sell due to low manufacturing volume and sales limited to few markets;
b) dealerships charging more than MSRP; and
c) dealerships selling them "used" as noted in this post.

None suggest insufficient demand for the car. I haven't heard of any polls or such that shows demand for Volts in the US being close to, or lower than, the number of Volts currently being produced.

In fact, the reports of these dealerships doing what they've done proves that demand is high - they wouldn't ask for more than MSRP if nobody wanted them; they wouldn't pull this "used" stunt if there was insufficient demand to guarantee sales.

In this "information age", no-one can profess to know of every legitimate documented study, press release, poll, etc. If anybody has reliable sources of information to add to, or contradict, my three-point list above, I'd be interested to know. I don't really care since I have no power and I'm not planning on buying one - just curiosity and fodder for this thread.

Brian H |
June 5, 2011

Ethics and (Used/New) Car Dealers are strangers. Maybe enemies.

Mittar |
June 9, 2011

I really detest the classic care sales model. I'm so glad that Tesla is keeping their dealerships in house.

Ramon123 |
June 14, 2011

As usual, not well-considered law provides for unexpected and negative side effects. I swear, I sometimes think a 7 year old
could do better at making laws. I remember a study years ago that
did what the govt never does - follow up on results of their laws. It was appalling - most laws don't come close to achieving their stated purpose and a large number had unexpected consequences.

Ramon123 |
June 14, 2011

The Volt sales numbers seem to be very weird. We know that Nissan has plenty of buyers and can't produce them in the volume they had
expected, apparently for several reasons, one being a lot of
engineering goofs. Nissan was quite embarrassed about those.
But the Volt numbers don't make much sense - GM keeps talking about ramping up to a gazillion per year, but only seems to sell a few hundred a month. They had plenty of folks on their waiting lists, so I have no clue what's going on there. And today I read a story in one of the gas guzzling websites (jalopnik) that claims that electric cars are hard to build and should be left to the pros (you,know, like the recently bankrupted GM or Chrysler).
As if GM had 10% of the knowledge of Tesla.